Are Games Getting too Easy? Do Easy Games sell better?

(So yea, Gaming hasn't improved, it has simply gotten simpler so we imbeciles can enjoy it. Right? Wrong!)

Commonly in Video Game culture there comes a discussion of how games today are just far too easy and they've developed this way to make it easier for the masses to play games. This idea perpetuates the notion that gaming has only gotten bigger because it has dumbed down so that non-gamers(Whoever they are) can get excited about playing games.

There are two main reasons why these types of ideas are just plain stupid. Firstly it's actually offensive to gamers to say that more people play now because games have gotten "stupid" enough for the majority of "stupid" society to play along.

Believe it or not, Pokemon, Paperboy, and Super Street fighter were never hard games. It's true that there are a number of series early on in gaming that were extremely challenging but looking at the "Golden" era of gaming shows a plethora of games you could consider laughably easy.

IF ANYTHING there are MORE challenging games on the market from 2000-2012, then there were from 1988-2000. As gamers grew up, game designers were forced to keep their audience and code for better and better games more centered toward growing audiences. This has lead to more challenge over time rather than more games like Asteroids.

So just to clarify my first point, there were tons of easy games back when Gaming was developing in the golden era which people seem to so greatly cling to. Ignoring them and saying we have too many easy games today is just ignorance about Gaming history.

Secondly, games have gotten more efficient over time and game designers have been working their butts off trying to makes games more approachable and easier to understand for decades. To ignore their hard work in how they seamlessly integrate tutorials into the game or provide subtle hints to push the player forward CAN lead to someone THINKING a game is more easy. In reality it's Game designers who have become incredibly good at their jobs.

Games that used to stop and teach you a new game mechanic and then force you into the fire may have seemed harder than the current games which slowly ease you into a new game mechanic and only make it necessary once you've had time to master it.

This just means games are less frustrating and are fairer, rather than throwing you into the fire randomly or improperly setting up the game. Why would we want to go back to games that were badly designed?

Hard Games have always existed

Now pointing all this out isn't to say that hard games didn't exist, they definitely did and the hard ones in the 1990's are probably harder than the hard ones we have today. But to say that we don't have games that are difficult now, or to say that people only love gaming because it's dumbed down is insulting to all gamers. We're not imbeciles and society as a whole isn't filled with droves of idiots that like to randomly mash buttons.

Button mashing games exist, as do correctly designed games like Pokemon. Pokemon, just given as an example, is a game that has depth, but can also be easily played by most children. The game design is supurb and explains why it has gone on to sell millions of copies.

Similarly, most current day games have learned the mistakes of the passed, become the wiser, and are more approachable and easier to  get into than games of the past. This doesn't make them easier, only better built, and this increased efficiency of play is a boon that has lead to many millions more people getting addicted to the gaming bug.

Our Games are as great as they've always been, we should recognize that, praise the talents of game designers, and acknowledge that we've learned from the past's mistakes. To simply throw that all away and say games are "easier" is essentially a slap in the face to all gamers; especially when you follow it up by saying gaming only has mass appeal if it's dumbed down.

Don't let their ignorance about Gaming's history taint the hard work of countless game production studios, designers, programmers, and the community at large.